Day 36: An Unlikely Pilgrim

“You really are a pilgrim?” The extraordinarily large man emphasized the noun and not the verb in his astonished query.

“You don’t think I am old enough?” Tritti asked.

“No, no, no, darling. You aren’t, but that’s not why.” The man’s puffy hands rapped the reins and the two kabs shambled up. Everything about this round man declared him to be uninteresting. His sun faded maroon vest said he’d been on this road for years. As did his brown on top white on bottom fat arms. His rig blah blah blah (stuff about how plain he is). Why would a man go to so much trouble to seem uninteresting when he so clearly was?

“I’m a girl.” Tritti said it like it was a confession. She’d always known that no matter how different the world was outside her village it would still be the same in regards to her gender.

The man laughed. It was only an amused chuckle but his whole body participated. “Yes, I thought so too. Let me tell you something about where you are going.”

“They call me Johnka. You can too.”

wondered why he hadn’t thought she was making a pilgrimage.

wondered why a pilgrim would be so unusual, especially here, along the road to ah’Taconschientee.